What the Elves did over the summer…

One of the questions we get asked lots is “what do we do when it’s not Christmas”?……..

Other than enjoy lots and lots of ice cream? (Elves LOVE ice cream, especially the special Ice cream from Cheshire Farm Ice Cream Farm) One of the questions we get asked lots is “what do we do when it’s not Christmas”?……

Everyone expects that we only work at Christmas time, which is of course not true. During the rest of the year we have important jobs to do such as maintenance work on our machines and making sure everything is in tip top condition ready for the busy festive period. We also come up with new designs for toys to make and we test out new toys.

One of the really exciting things that Santa does for us every summer is run a design contest, where any Elf from any department can submit a design for a new toy. All designs are judged by Santa himself. The top 5 are then created and tested and a winner is awarded. The winning entry goes into production for that Christmas and the Elf who designed that toy gets to put the final present into the sleigh on Christmas Eve, so it really is an honour and one attracts a lot of entries from eager Elves! I myself have won the contest 5 times!

This year my good friend Hálben won but you’ll have to wait to see what his winning design was; it will be announced in a few weeks!

RECOMMENDED TOYS FOR 2017

Did you know that Santa’s Elves have special relationships with toy manufacturers around the world, so that they can make toys on their behalf? And the Elves love making up new toy designs! We always have our own little competition at The North Pole for what we tink will be the children’s most popular requests and favourite toys! So you get a sneak peak into our predictions for the favourite toys this year:

This is an interactive learning robot for preschoolers that spins 360 degrees and can make over 60 different facial expressions. Movi has been designed to combine critical thinking skills with active play. He has 3 game modes and 6 games to choose from: The Elves favourite at the moment is ‘Red Light, Green Light’ – fun!

Flix has facial recognition, so will know your child when she talks to him, which the Elves love to test out as you can imagine! He’ll also repeat words and phrases back to you and you can change his eyes and skin colour. Another great feature is he takes secret photos and videos. You can take him anywhere as he detaches from his tripod.

All the Elves will want to be your guest with this gorgeous tea set, featuring a talking Mrs Potts, 4 cups and saucers and tray. It looks so jolly and everyone knows how much us Elves love hot chocolate and cookies, this would be a perfect set to serve us from!

The Elves love the Pie Face game and now there is a new way to play; a freestanding ‘fairground’ style version where you hit the hammer and see how far up you can get the pie to splat your opponent. Of course anything with this level of mess and fun the Elves (and children!) love! So this one is definitely a winner for this year!

There has also been a recent resurgence of the popular board game ‘Game of Life’ I remember first making this 57 years ago! It has changed a lot since then of course to fit with modern life. But I still love to play it as much now as I did then! Mainly because I can pretend to be a human which is such fun! As we don’t have things like cars and life insurance in the North Pole!

So welcome in Autumn, go and collect some conkers, enjoy the season changes in your wonderful world and next week I might tell you about our Elf Olympics which we held this year……